Who: Charlie Weasley and Kent Brightstar What: Finding evidence of a crime When: Friday 26 April (BACKDATED) Where: Dragon habitat Warnings: Injuries to animals (already inflicted); language.
Sedating an angry dragon was quite a job but one that Charlie Weasley had the most experience with of all the wranglers on the reserve. Which was why he was here with Healer Brightstar, who was examining the poor creature and checking him over. Mircea was patrolling the area close by and keeping other creatures and animals away from the injured dragon.
Now that he'd had a chance to look at the dragon, Charlie was more grateful that it was a male instead of a female. Someone had pulled scales and bled the poor creature and that was bad enough for a male. For a brooding female, treatment would represent a real disruption to her routine and could even result in damage and death for the eggs if she couldn't care for them.
Not that the sort of person who'd pull the scales off a dragon would care about that. They just wanted their dragon parts and their gold. Charlie understood making leather and taking blood and scale and heartstring from dead animals. He had been raised by parents who farmed chickens, loved them and cooed over them and had then eaten them for Sunday dinner. But you didn't take a chicken if you weren't hungry and you didn't kill a dragon at all. Not if you were a decent human being.
Brightstar looked like he was done with his examination. Charlie tried his best to stop scowling as he asked, "How's he doing?"
While he'd been working on the dragon, Kent had very purposefully kept his tone even and gentle. They could follow a mood better than a lot of creatures he knew, so it was always best to keep a level head when around them. His fury could come later, once he'd stepped far enough away, but it sparked deep in his eyes as he joined the newest wrangler. He nodded for them to walk a little further, and cleaned his specialized gloves as he went. It kept him physically occupied, even if it didn't help the clamor of his thoughts.
His own scowl rooted to his face even as Charlie seemed to master his. "There's irritation around the wound that's going to need monitoring to make sure it doesn't turn into scale rot, but I got the salve on it in time to keep it from spreading even if it does develop in just that one spot. Not much to do for the missing scales except to hope that nature takes over sooner rather than later. We're lucky whatever bastards did this to him couldn't have known their asses from their heads for the job they managed to do; a few inches higher and they would have punctured a lung."
He wasn't yelling, but, damn, did he really want to.
"Clearly we're going to have to increase security," Charlie said, and he might not look angry, but he sounded angry. "Hope the bastards got burnt for their trouble."
With the two men clear of the dragon, Mircea bounded over. Apparently he could sense the mood because he stationed himself between Charlie and Kent for maximum comforting of humans. Charlie reached down and put his hand in Mircea's fur.
"How long are we going to need to wait to see if the salve prevented the rot?" In Romania, Charlie would have had a decent guess, but from the smell and texture they were doing something slightly different here, possibly a change due to local ingredient availability, and he wasn't on as certain of a footing.
"They knew enough to sedate Perseus--the, uh, dragon before he could mount a defense. I had the groundskeepers do a sweep, but there were no burn patterns recent enough to indicate he was able to fire off a shot." Kent felt his gaze soften a little at the dog's efforts, but he couldn't let himself indulge in his desire to pet him just yet. He needed to hold on to his cold fury for just a little while longer. There wasn't even time to be embarrassed for the slip of the name. "And we should know better in about twelve to twenty-four hours. Can you have his regular handlers set a watch on him? Two days at least."
He glowered at the ground for a moment, before digging his boot hard into a patch of snow. "How the fuck does this even happen?" Kent growled. "We're supposed to have measures in place to counteract this bullshit!"
"Poachers are getting aggressive again." Charlie had been through a round or three of this before in Romania, and for all that he was upset, he could at least project a little calm. "We're putting together a working group on anti-poaching measures, locals and MANTICORE and--what's your American agency? CREATURE? Get everyone together and cracking heads. Possibly literally."
Kent gave Charlie a flat look. "So, a committee." His tone made it very clear what he thought about this idea. "Who will meet, and compare, and discuss, and lay out plans, and in the meantime, someone keeps attacking my charges! What the fuck are we doing about this now? We're the best reserve on the whole damned continent, and not even we can stop it? It's bullshit! We should be fucking better!"
His voice actually echoed over the grounds, but the healer was beyond caring. This shit was typical of what had been happening over the last few months, and he was so done with all of it.
Charlie's eyebrows went up. "What, specifically, do you have in mind to do about it? And how far are you willing to stick your neck out to get it done?"
"Whatever it fucking takes," Kent shot back, steely-eyed. "And for starters, we could beef up our border wards and proximity alerts. Afterward, I propose we hunt down the bastards that did this and repay like-for-like."
"Already done that. We're dealing with someone who can silently dismantle them," Charlie said, because it was true. "And, quite seriously, if you can dismantle my wards without me noticing--I mean, I'm not Bill, here, but I still remember how we did it--I'm also a little worried about the firepower we'll be tangling with. I'm ready to do it because it has to be done but don't think it will be easy or without cost." He caught Kent's gaze, looked him straight in the eye. "People die doing this kind of work, and not always the poachers. You ever been to the funeral of a friend? A brother? I have and it's not easy. This is not a lark."
While he could concede to himself that Charlie's warnings had given him pause--he thought of Uma, Rafe, and Zophie, and then he thought of Cate and Tony-- and maybe a thrill of slight fear went up his spine. But he had the strength of his convictions to squash that. Kent looked at his fellow wizard steadily. "Whatever it takes."
"All right, then." Charlie nodded decisively. "We're in the information gathering phase of operations right now. I'll see if there's anything you can help with--your name alone will open some doors that are closed to others." Charlie smirked, like he knew something about having a Name. "I know you want it all to be over fast and dirty, but making sure we hit them hard and throw them under--whatever your version of Azkaban is in America--is going to be a little tricky. Especially when they'll try to run across the border into Canada if we're not careful." Charlie exhaled what sounded like an obscenity. "Do you have any government connections?"
The sound that left Kent was tight and bitter. He didn't care. The memory of being trapped overnight with Thorne flashed through his head, leaving him with a stronger case of irritation than before. "My name doesn't have nearly the weight you think it does. Our family was ousted from having any real control or power over the Reserve before I was even born. If you're looking to trade on a name, try Constantine or Proudfoot. Or my sister's name. Zophiel--Zophie--she's a Deputy Director in BACO's Compliance division. If anyone's got any kind of weight, it's gonna be her."
It was true, and Kent wasn't so full of himself that he couldn't admit that any greased wheels they were going to try to achieve would only be done on the power of her name. He was just a healer on a Reserve with an incidental surname. Reason number 532 why he was failing at living up to his potential. He forced his thoughts back through sheer force of will. "And, anyway, I'm not worried about Canada. They've got CARGO, and very friendly extradition arrangements with the U.S."
Charlie, who was a perpetual failure at living up both to the Weasley name (Ron and Ginny alone were a lot to live up to, plus his mother had killed Bellatrix Lestrange) and to his so-called potential (he was the least of his brothers in that respect, with the sole exception of George, who got a pass for other reasons) shrugged. "We'll need all the name we can get. I'm not inclined to lean on the names I don't know yet but if your sister's a good one, maybe we should talk to her. And I'll talk to my contact in MANTICORE about this as well, plus Proudfoot." He patted Kent's shoulder reassuringly. "We may not be able to do anything more for Perseus here today, but we'll get it worked out."
Mircea barked his agreement with his human.
"My sister isn't a good one," Kent said immediately. "She the best one. Once she gets wind of this, be prepared for her to rain hellfire. You think I get on a warpath?" His smile went fierce and proud and maybe a little scary. "You really haven't seen a fucking thing yet."
Though they were well out of sight of the injured dragon, but he still looked back in that direction before going back to Charlie and Mircea. It cooled his temper by a hair to hear the dragon handler use the name that Kent had given him in secret. He was still furious, but he was attempting to get a cooler head about all of this. Reaching out a hand toward Mircea so he could pet him, Kent glanced in Charlie's direction. "Thanks for including me...and putting up with me. Not a lot of people would choose to do that--work with me. I know how I get."
"Mate," Charlie told him with a grin, "it's no crime to get angry because someone hurt a dragon. If that's the worst you do, we'll get on fine."